By Mary Gow
Arts Correspondent
Two cups sit on a low coffee table in front of an elegant blue velvet Louis XV-style settee. A vase and house plant nestle on shelves behind them. The ceiling above is mangled — twisted rebar dangles from chunks of fractured concrete. The wall of the once gracious parlor is pockmarked from bombs or bullets.
This detailed miniature room evokes the lifestyle of the family who lived in the original of this home — and the abrupt end of that comfortable time in their lives.
In accompanying audio, Ayman recalls the day when his family had to leave Homs, Syria, and his grandfather’s urgency telling them to leave immediately. He still sees his mother’s cup of coffee on the table.
Ayman and his family applied for refugee status and moved to Connecticut in 2015. He and his sister have since studied here in Vermont.
Ayman’s miniature living room is one of the recreations of homes refugees have left behind in the multi-media installation “Unpacked: Refugee Baggage” at the Fleming Museum of Art at the University of Vermont. Each of these mixed-media miniatures by Syrian-born artist and architect Mohamad Hafez is constructed inside a suitcase. The homes are accompanied by recordings collected and curated by Iraqi-born writer Ahmed Badr — voices and stories of the people who escaped those places to start new lives in the United States.
In the Fleming’s Marble Court Balcony Gallery, Shanta Lee Gander’s “Dark Goddess: An Exploration of the Sacred Feminine,” also opened in February. A mix of ethnography, cultural anthropology, exploration and co-creation with the featured individuals, the exhibition features large format photographs, film and writing. It also includes responses to selections in the Fleming’s permanent collection — a portion of the exhibition that will be expanded later this spring. “Dark Goddess” continues through Dec. 9 in the Marble Court Balcony Gallery.
In “Unpacked: Refugee Baggage,” Hafez and Badr take viewers to the homes, culture, and stories of 10 families whose lives were uprooted by war. Meticulously composed, these compact dioramas have details of architecture, furniture style, cherished belongings. French-style furniture popular in Syria from its colonial past, a red tricycle, open books, a corded telephone, elegant rugs — the things people choose to live with offer intimate glimpses.
War’s violence shows in pieces — walls ripped by explosions, floors collapsing, gas cannisters pierced by artillery. The details speak to these individuals, and also bring to mind news photographs of apartment buildings shredded by missile attacks.
“There was a fire burning inside me to start humanizing refugees and to tell their stories,” Hafez said in a talk at the Fleming Museum last Wednesday about the exhibit.
Hafez, who grew up between Syria and Saudi Arabia, was drawn to architecture from childhood. He studied at Iowa State University, but as a Syrian had an “entry only” visa to the United States. Missing the built environment of his homeland, Hafez began making miniatures of buildings and streetscapes there.
Embarking on a corporate architecture career he worked on projects around the world with the firm that designed the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Maylaysia, privately continuing his art. With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, he was unable to return to his home. Lives of family and friends were uprooted.
“I turned to art. My early work was nostalgic. My later work came to more visually represent the war and aftermath,” Hafez said.
Among his displaced friends and family, Hafez connected with a relative in a refugee camp. Expecting to see mostly Syrians, he was surprised by the global population there.
“My art took a turn. I knew I had the means to express myself and that it was time to stop whining about my own homesickness and do something for others, give voice to the voiceless so to speak,” Hafez said.
“I got interested in baggage — physical and metaphorical,” he explained, noting that for many refugees, a suitcase full of belongings is often all they have, yet they also have the metaphorical baggage of their experiences.
Hafez, who lives in New Haven, Connecticut, knew many refugees from many countries. Over lots of chats and lots of teas, they would open up and tell their stories.
“As an architect, I would ask about their homes, what they miss most, was there a special space — a windowsill, a living room sofa? We all have these places in our houses,” he said.
“I wanted to build a project that would speak by itself. My preferred audience is not my echo chamber. How do I make a piece of art that somebody unsympathetic to the cause would pay attention to?” Hafez recalled, and recognized that fascination with miniatures offered that opportunity.
“I want you to meet and feel like you know these families,” he said.
For Azhaar, a lawyer, and Fouad, an accountant from Sudan, the telephone was the critical link to Azhaar’s elderly father. The phone sits next to the red chair in their parlor.
Fereshteh, born in Afghanistan, raised in Iran, secretly ran a school for undocumented Afghan children in her basement in Tehran, teaching over 300 students a day. Her room, complete with tiny books with verses from the Qur’an, is constructed inside her grandmother’s suitcase. An education advocate, Fereshteh founded Elena’s Light, an organization dedicated to improving access to education and health care for refugees.
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